|
It will be asked how act rising from desire can be voluntary,
since desire pulls outward and implies need; to desire is still
to be drawn, even though towards the good.
Intellectual-Principle itself comes under the doubt; having a
certain nature and acting by that nature can it be said to have
freedom and self-disposal- in an act which it cannot leave
unenacted? It may be asked, also, whether freedom may strictly be
affirmed of such beings as are not engaged in action.
However that may be, where there is such act there is compulsion
from without, since, failing motive, act will not be performed.
These higher beings, too, obey their own nature; where then is
their freedom?
But, on the other hand, can there be talk of constraint where
there is no compulsion to obey an extern; and how can any
movement towards a good be counted compulsion? Effort is free
once it is towards a fully recognised good; the involuntary is,
precisely, motion away from a good and towards the enforced,
towards something not recognised as a good; servitude lies in
being powerless to move towards one's good, being debarred from
the preferred path in a menial obedience. Hence the shame of
slavedom is incurred not when one is held from the hurtful but
when the personal good must be yielded in favour of another's.
Further, this objected obedience to the characteristic nature
would imply a duality, master and mastered; but an undivided
Principle, a simplex Activity, where there can be no difference
of potentiality and act, must be free; there can be no thought of
"action according to the nature," in the sense of any distinction
between the being and its efficiency, there where being and act
are identical. Where act is performed neither because of another
nor at another's will, there surely is freedom. Freedom may of
course be an inappropriate term: there is something greater here:
it is self-disposal in the sense, only, that there is no disposal
by the extern, no outside master over the act.
In a principle, act and essence must be free. No doubt
Intellectual-Principle itself is to be referred to a yet higher;
but this higher is not extern to it; Intellectual-Principle is
within the Good; possessing its own good in virtue of that
indwelling, much more will it possess freedom and self-disposal
which are sought only for the sake of the good. Acting towards
the good, it must all the more possess self-disposal for by that
Act it is directed towards the Principle from which it proceeds,
and this its act is self-centred and must entail its very
greatest good.
|
|